Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

In Japan, convenience stores are the bomb – in post-recessionary times, low price point and high selection equals busy traffic. With 100 new products introduced a week, convenience stores are prime locations for consumer activity. Since shelf space very limited, products are only given a three-week lifespan. If they don’t hit, the stores make room for the next round of new products. Japanese consumers demand fresh goods according to their day so deliveries happen constantly. Keep in mind, these are not like your local Circle K. You can buy plane tickets, book a house cleaner, drop off your laundry, buy fresh bread or even have a drink. (information from Future Trends 2010, Nicole Fall, Five by Fifty)

According to Edelman, “Brand preference ranks with religion and ethnicity as top personal identifiers” for Millennials – those born between 1980 and 1995. After all, Americans are exposed to 1500 – 3000 advertising messages a day and, in bad economic times, it is seeping into the school system. It is no surprise that schools need funding and advertisers are only too happy to penetrate adolescent brain matter. So, this does beg the question: for today’s youth, what is more powerful, brands or religion?

Conceptualized by a recent product design graduate, Jeremy Innes-Hopkins, the Nokia Kinetic stands upright when a call or text message is received, adding movement to a traditionally static object. Now, if I can only get my dog to walk himself, I will be all set!

Acai berry has been the superfood darling the past few years, but the fruit of the famed African Baobab tree has gotten noticed outside of Africa for its vitamin richness. According to National Geographic, the baobab tree has “six times as much vitamin C as oranges, twice as much calcium as milk, and plenty of B vitamins, magnesium, iron, phosphorous, and antioxidants.” The fruit looks like little marshmallows with seeds stuffed into a papaya-shaped coconut and the flavor is described as both tart and sweet.

With so much information floating around these days, it is no wonder that Amazon has created a new top 25 list. Think of it as the future of the New York Times Best Seller List but in byte sized pieces.

Basically, Kindle readers have the power to highlight passages in books that they deem important, cool or just interesting. The result is that these passages will be highlighted for other Kindle users – unless they choose to disable this new feature called ‘popular highlights’ – as well as featured on Amazon.com.

Depending upon how you look at this, this can be a positive or negative. While it gets you to the heart of what America is reading, it can also be seen as another way that we are weakening our brain matter. Akin to multitasking, relying on this type of technology can result in further lack of concentration. What is better? Being more connected or less focused? Hummm…

At the recent commencement ceremony at RISD, students suddenly interrupted the scheduled program, flash mob style, and performed a rendition of the dance from Slumdog Millionaire. I say, “Jai Ho, graduates!”

According to Richard Florida, 60% of Americans say they want to live in walkable communities. He tags this as part of a New Urbanism. Is walking part of the culture of your community? For recreation? For commerce?

This may be old news to photography aficios, but it’s news to me! You press the shutter button and just sweep the camera laterally and it takes the images automatically and stitches them together in a about a second for a super-wide panorama shot. Sony TX7 Cybershot! (I can’t remember the last time I used the “Sony” in conjunction with an exclamation mark.)

The image is in the elevator of the W Hotel in San Francisco. This linticular mural thrusts an ancient Japanese print into a pool of modernity with color and technology giving it new intrigue and depth. Forget my room – I just wanted to hang out in the elevator. The hotel managed to create a soothing memorable moment.